Be upfront and transparent with the prices of your products.

This was House Minority Leader and 4Ps Party-list Rep. Marcelino Libanan's warning to online retailers Wednesday, Dec. 21, amid Filipinos' last-minute Christmas shopping.

“Online retailers who do not put price tags on their products, and who only divulge their prices via private message (PM) to prospective buyers, are violating the law," stressed Libanan, a lawyer.

The ranking congressman was referring to Republic Act (RA) No. 7394, or the Consumer Act of 1992.

“We must stress that the law compels all retailers, under pain of penalties, to put price tags on their products for all consumers to see. This applies to all retailers, regardless whether they are selling online or in physical stores,” Libanan said.

“In order to protect consumers, we would urge the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to rigorously enforce the price tag requirement,” he said.

Under the law, retailers are prohibited from offering any product for sale to the public without a price tag in pesos and centavos.

Libanan noted that many online retailers, including those selling through social media platforms, continue to display their products for sale without price tags. They merely provide photos of their products along with other details, and then wait for consumers to ask for the price of the item.

When consumers openly ask for an item’s price, the retailers would then reply with: “PM sent."

The Consumer Act of 1992 also says that a product cannot be sold at a price higher than what is indicated in the price tag--a provision that's conceivably being violated daily in the secondary market.

Libanan said Congress passed RA No. 7394 specifically to ensure absolute pricing transparency and to safeguard the public against potential pricing abuses.

Under the 30-year-old law, violators of the price tag rule can face up to six months in prison, or a fine of up to P5,000, or both, at the discretion of the court. Repeat offenders face revocation of business permit and license.

The law defines retailer as “a person engaged in the business of selling consumer products directly to consumers".